With new songs in hand, 3 Doors Down is looking forward to a hot summer concert in WNY

Perhaps no one is more excited
about a warm, sticky Western New York August than 3 Doors Down frontman Brad
Arnold.

The man loves warm weather.

"We had a pretty gnarly winter
here in Nashville. ... I didn't think summer was ever going to get here!" Arnold
said in a recent phone interview.

"I love getting out and touring in
the wintertime, but it's hard," Arnold explained. "It's harder traveling and
just going in and out of venues and different things like that. It's always
cold. You've got to take all these jackets and junk like that.

"Summertime? Man, I love it. I
love getting out on those summertime stages outside and just getting out there
and sweating."

"I look forward to those
summertime shows so much. ... The heat doesn't bother me a bit," he said.

Arnold also is fond of Western New
York.

When 3 Doors Down first announced
its current tour, its upcoming Erie County Fair gig was one of a small number
of concerts above the Mason-Dixon line for the Mississippi rock band.

"Man, we always have a great time
up there," he said. "I love to go see the falls when I'm up there. It's
beautiful. ... Good people up there. I've just always enjoyed that area. That's
one of the few places, actually, when I was a little kid, I didn't travel a
ton, but I got to go to Niagara Falls when I was a little kid. My dad was going
to a school up there. ... And my mom and myself went up there and visited him one
time. And they took us out to the falls.

"I had this old picture that was
me sitting under a tree there in the park. One trip up there - it's probably
been 10 years ago that I did it - I tried my best to find that exact tree that
I was under. It was about the same time of year. When I was baby, it was like I
was sitting there playing in the leaves. I piled up some leaves around me, and
sat down in them, and I got somebody to take my picture. And I took it to my
mom. She got a kick out of it. So, I've always loved coming up there."

Brad Arnold

3 Doors Down is preparing a new
studio album, which Arnold said will surprise fans.

"Man, it is going to be a good
one," he said. "It's not like totally another band from the other stuff, but
it's different than the other stuff. And not in a 'Whoa, that's weird,' kind of
way. It just really evolved, man. We got some new guys in the band now, so
there's different flavors in there.

"This album is a fun album. It's,
in some ways, it's kind of hard to describe, because the songs are all over the
place. I mean, there's so many different kinds of songs. There's right there
being metal to one song is almost like an old '60s Beatles song, just about.
It's like a little bit of everything. There's some fun, almost like techno
songs in there. ...

"There's a lot of different
flavors on this record. At the same time, I think it's a record that people
will just put it in and listen to and I think they'll enjoy it."

Though 3 Doors Down has produced a
dozen hit songs (including "Loser," "Kryptonite," "When I'm Gone," "Here
Without You" and "Away from the Sun"), the band relied on its fans to determine
which songs would make it onto the new album.

"I'm just really excited for
people to hear it, and just have them tell me what they think about it," Arnold
said. "Because, you know, I like the songs, but it really don't matter if I
like them or not (laughs). It's that the fans like them."

To that end, the band has been
testing songs live in concert.

"You know, I think that's
important," Arnold said. "I think it's really important to go play some of
those songs live. Those songs tend to be the ones that kind of grow the most.
You get in the studio and you write songs, and, sometimes if you record them
too soon, you tend to maybe record that song in like a baby stage. Whereas,
maybe if you take it out on tour and you have a chance to, like, take that song
to the gym and let it work out some, and let it turn into a big beast."

Having worked through the new
material, Arnold said, "There's a couple of (songs) that are really cool."

"I think there's some of them
there that people ... I think it's going to catch some people off guard," he
said. "They're not going to be like, 'Oh, man, this ain't 3 Doors Down; I don't
like this.' I don't think that any of them will be like that. But definitely
some of them, the first time you hear them, it's going to take you a second to
realize that it's actually us."

"We've never toured with
Collective Soul before, but we've played a few shows with them," Arnold said.
"They're great guys. It's kind of cool. In some ways, you have those bands
every now and then, it's a little bit surreal to play with them."

"It's surreal to play with people
that you listened to in high school," he said. "It's like, 'Damn; I played a
show with Collective Soul.' It was like that with ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd and
bands like that. It's bands that you knew before you became 'famous' and whatever.
It's, like, it's always a little bit strange in your mind. You know what I
mean?"

3 Doors Down is just putting the
finishing touches on its new album. Additional details will soon be released on
the band's website, www.3doorsdown.com.